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I think the word abstraction here is overloaded. OOP is also fundamentally driven by abstractions. The difference is that FP abstractions are mathematical abstr

by achr2 6y ago

I think the word abstraction here is overloaded. OOP is also fundamentally driven by abstractions. The difference is that FP abstractions are mathematical abstractions, while OOP starts with human-centric conceptual abstractions - the kind every two year old is taught. These are not the same in terms of cognitive understanding. I also use FP approaches all the time in OO languages (like C#), which I believe is more aligned with where the general purpose language world is moving.

talaketu 6y ago
Abstractions are drawn along different axes in both OOP and FP. The showcase example "Circle, Square, Rectangles are kinds of Shapes that have area" represents an abstraction that is present in the conceptual schema (aka Domain Model, aka Universe of Discourse, aka "problem space"), regardless of implementation style. Likewise, what you call "mathematical abstraction" (and I'd prefer to call a "implementation model") is present both in OOP (eg "visitor pattern, inheritance, facade") and in FP (eg "fold, pattern match, monad"). I don't really think the difficulty in groking "visitor" is much different from groking "fold".